


Freaks

by its_dian



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Communication, Dreams and Nightmares, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Living Together, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mentioned Toby Smith | Tubbo, Mentioned TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned Wilbur Soot, Not Beta Read, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_dian/pseuds/its_dian
Summary: What happens when Dream gets his face leaked? Nothing great, that's for sure.- - -This fic is inspired by the song Freaks by Surf Curse!
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 216





	Freaks

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this a month(?) ago and then picked it back up and finished it today so pls let me know if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes!

He couldn’t believe this was happening.

He sat on the floor of his bathroom, phone sat in front of him with twitter pulled up. Not just any tweet, however, but one that had his face in it. Right there. Multiple photos of him, the real him. Not just some celebrity his fans joked about being him or some random cartoon character with blond hair.

It was him, Clay. Photos of him, present day, doing things in his day to day life when he thought he was safe.

He didn’t even think this  _ could  _ happen.

As he stares down at his phone he hears the repetitive dinging sound of incoming messages, along with the rapid display of notifications at the top of the screen.

Some of them were from his other social media, but he could make out that most of them were messages from friends and family alike.

Great.

He tries to steady his breathing, knowing he should get up and get dressed at the very least, having just gotten out of the shower when he checked his phone to see the sudden exposure.

He shakily reaches down and hits the power button on his phone, setting it to silent as he does.

He reaches for a towel, using it to halfheartedly dry his hair, before standing up on shaky legs. He can still hear his phone vibrating from the floor as he makes his way out of the bathroom into his bedroom. He can feel tears rolling down his cheeks, the corners of his eyes burning, but he just feels hollow. It’s obvious that he’s still crying, sobs wracking through his body, but he feels almost robotic as he moves, an empty feeling in his chest.

He grabs a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, distantly recognizing the fire symbol on the front identifying it as his best friend’s merch. He can’t bring himself to care right now.

He leaves the room, hearing the sounds of his phone get fainter and fainter as he moves down the stairs. He’d rather go to bed for an indefinite amount of time, but he knows that that would be unfair to Patches. Finally reaching the kitchen and flipping on the light, he crouches down and pours Patches’ food into her bowl. Deciding he has nothing better to do, he flops down, leaning his back against the counter and sitting cross-legged. Patches comes over and grabs a piece of her food before curling up in his lap, nuzzling her face into his stomach. She probably knows something’s wrong. She typically does.

The only sound is her using her nose to drag her food bowl closer to Clay’s leg and proceeding to crunch away on her food. He appreciates her company, petting her slowly from where she’s resting. 

He still can’t process it.

He knows, logically, that he has options. He could ignore it like he has in the past with things like this, and eventually it would pass and probably just become a joke amongst the fans like everything else. He could acknowledge it, saying it’s not him and for everyone to calm down, and he knows that his true fans would back off at his discomfort. Or he could- he could own up to it. He could say that, yes, that’s his face, and no, he did not want to reveal his face this way. Surely his fans would let it go and wait until he was ready.

. . .

Right?

Or would they disregard that, sending him positive messages despite not knowing how harmful it would be for his mental health. It’s not that he’s scared he’ll get hate, it’s that he had his own face reveal robbed from him. That he wasn’t able to wait it out on his own time and show his face on his own volition. It’s supposed to be his to do and  _ enjoy _ . It’s supposed to be his to do and feel comfortable. To feel proud. To feel free.

But no.

He just feels uncomfortable in his own skin. Feels small in his own mind. Feels. . .

He feels trapped. He feels like he can’t breathe. Like he’s grasping at straws, desperately trying to hold on as he’s sucked into the ground.

He’s been robbed.

So painfully robbed.

He lays back, letting Patches rest on his chest, and feels himself be pulled under into sleep.

\- - -

When he opens his eyes, he’s no longer in his kitchen, he’s not even in his house. He sits up, looking around. He’s laying in a comfortable patch of grass, and he seems to be in a clearing of the woods. There are multiple things wrong here. First, he lives in Florida, and he can’t think of any area nearby that has heavy woods like this. Second, there’s no way he got here without being aware of how. At least, on his own.

And that’s when he realizes. 

He’s not alone.

Laying next to him, fingers interlocked, is George.

He’s wearing his typical hoodie and sweatpants, and is gazing up at Clay, a small smile playing across his features. 

Clay almost lets out a sob of relief, squeezing George’s smaller hand in his own.

“How are we here?” His voice is quiet, not wanting to shatter the moment.

George slowly brings his other hand up to his face, putting a finger over his mouth, gesturing for Clay to be quiet.

George sits up as well, pushing his forehead to Clay’s and wrapping his arms around Clay’s neck. Distantly, Clay can sense something in the woods around them, but he can’t bring himself to move away from George. 

Whatever it is in the woods is getting closer, and louder as well. He keeps eye-contact with George, feeling as calm as ever in his presence.

And then it happens.

He doesn’t know what’s happening but it starts with his eyes, he can feel some kind of liquid running down his cheeks, it’s cold, unlike the hot tears he’s familiar with. George’s face is sympathetic, but he makes no effort to help Clay, only whispering soft words that are lost to Clay’s ears as the flow of the black liquid increases. He begins to get very light-headed very quickly, feeling something crawling around his head. Whatever the bug-like creatures are, they’re moving fast, and it feels like they’re only growing in numbers.

And then Clay realizes that they’re not just crawling on his head.

They’re _coming_ _from_ his head. As in, they’re crawling out of his skull. 

He grows dizzy in George’s arms (when did George start to hold him?) and he blacks out.

\- - -

He wakes with a start, immediately snapping into a sitting position. Patches, now officially concerned and startled, scrambles away from her perch on his chest to the other side of the kitchen. He’s sweating, heart racing. He brings a hand instinctively to feel around his eyes and skull, making sure that his nightmare hadn’t miraculously actually happened.

He’s fine, there’s no black sludge pouring from his eyes or weird parasitic bugs crawling from his skull.

He breathes, letting his heart slow back down to a reasonable pace.

And then it immediately starts racing again when he realizes what happened before he passed out.

His face was leaked.

Now everyone has seen it, whether they believe it’s actually him or not. All of his friends that hadn’t previously seen his face have now, and he  _ knows _ they’ve probably worked it out.

He feels himself start to cry yet again, laying back down on the cold kitchen floor.

Where does he go from here?

He’s sure his phone is probably still buzzing away in the bathroom upstairs, but he really,  _ really _ doesn’t want to go and check. After a while of watching the clock barely visible to him from the hallway tick away, he feels himself unable to keep crying. He pulls himself up, using the counter beside him for support, he makes his way to the hallway, keeping a hand braced on the wall. Patches was trailing close behind, worried about her owner.

He takes a deep breath, moving up the stairs slowly with Patches moving at the same pace, right on his heels. He appreciates her being here, even though it’s probably an obvious thing that she would be. It’s sweet.

As he makes his way into his bedroom, he’s immediately met with the sound of his phone buzzing away. 

_ Still? _

He isn’t sure exactly how long it’s been, but he feels drained and he just wants to go to bed. He knows he should at least pick up his phone though, maybe put it on charge before taking a nice, long, nap.

Yeah, that sounds nice.

He walks even slower than before, resting a hand on the doorframe as he watches the phone.

Better sooner than later, he supposes.

He walks over, reaching down and picking up the phone (and making sure not to check the notifications), before walking back out and removing his shirt, climbing into bed.

He lays there for a bit, Patches curling up at the foot of the bed, not wanting to stray far. 

. . .

He can’t sleep.

For one, he can’t stop thinking about his dream from earlier, how happy and safe he felt with George before the- whatever that was set in. He’s been aware of his- would you call it a crush? He’s been aware of his crush on George for quite some time, it’s not anything new. And it's certainly not his first time dreaming about George either, that was a regular thing, as odd as it sounds.

It was just the first time that something had gone  _ wrong _ . Typically he never wants to wake up when he dreams of George, typically he wants to stay with him forever. But whatever that was earlier- that was something he wishes to never have to return to.

Maybe he should check his phone.

Not to clear everything up, but to respond to his close friends and probably mute twitter (again) (he has to turn off the notifications whenever something big like this happens for his own sanity).

Reaching over to his nightstand and unplugging his phone, he turns it on, immediately adjusting the brightness to be lower. He hadn’t realized how late at night it was. The time on his phone reads 2:47am. He immediately switches off notifications for all of his main social media accounts, moving to discord and seeing that, yeah, he has  _ a few _ messages waiting for him. And by that he means that there’s at least 100 across all of his separate conversations and groups. He sighs, deciding to deal with those later.

He opens his dms with Nick, seeing that he’s been flooded with concern and support, with links to things like breathing stabilizers and videos about minecraft. Things Nick knows would help Clay calm down. Clay smiles, already feeling himself start to tear up again. 

Deciding to keep it short and sweet (he doesn’t have the energy for much else) he types out a simple “hey man i am very much not okay right now but i really appreciate your concern. ily and i'll talk to you soon” he hits send. 

Moving on to replying to George he finds himself at a loss for words. Not only did George spam his discord, but he has more than a few missed calls and several missed facetimes from George filling his inbox. And then he checks his actual messages. Of course there’s some from his family, but there’s the most out of any from George. And what really catches his eye is that George seems really,  _ really _ worried. To the point he’s actively using Clay’s actual name rather than ‘Dream’, and he was asking if he needed to contact anybody despite being a literal ocean away. 

It was the last message George sent that really caught his eye though. 

“clay please if you don't respond to me as soon as you can i'm going to have no choice but to buy one of us a plane ticket. i love you, okay? get back to me when you can”

George rarely said I love you, much less said it  _ first _ . He was being really serious. He was really worried.

Fuck.

He was worried about Clay. 

Worried to the point where he threatened to buy a plane ticket. Serious or not, it was behavior that was unheard of from George. Sure, he joked around with them all the time and certainly wasn’t quiet, but this wasn’t normal.

Not that it was exactly  _ unwelcome _ either, though.

Maybe it would actually. . .

Maybe it would be sort of nice. To, yknow, be with George in person. To be able to look him in the eye just like in his dream, be held in his arms and vice versa. Minus the weird parasites and whatever the fuck that was in the woods.

Yeah.

He’s suddenly snapped back to reality when he feels his phone buzz in his hands. It’s a discord notification from one very relieved and cautious Nick. Clay clicks on the notification.

  
  


“thank fuck youre okay dude i was so worried

are you feeling any better”

Clay sees that he types more, but eventually he stops and it seems as if the ball is in Clay’s court to carry on the conversation. This is okay. 

“yeah i think im fine i just needed to take a break and breathe y'know”

He starts to type, going to ask if they can call, when he suddenly feels his phone start to buzz with an incoming call from George. He takes a deep breath, hitting accept.

“Dream!”

“George!”

He can practically hear George’s smile, and he feels himself smile as well. He swipes his fingers across his cheeks, gathering up the tears before wiping them haphazardly on his sweatpants. He feels Patches shift, moving to his side and curling up into his hip.

He hears George sigh quietly, and his voice is hesitant as he continues. “Do you wanna talk about it or do you just wanna hang out? Cause I don’t mind either way.”

Clay lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, glad that George was being patient with him right now.

“We can uh- We can talk about it. It’s probably for the best that I face it sooner rather than later.”

“Okay, that’s good, that's okay! Uh- do you know if you’re going to address it publicly or not yet?”

Wow, so they’re getting right into it.

Clay takes a deep breath, reaching over with the hand that isn’t holding the phone to gently scratch behind Patches’ ear. She starts to purr softly.

“I know I could ignore it and it would be fine but I-” He closes his eyes, trying his best to keep his voice from shaking, “I think I’ll address it. I’m not sure how I’m gonna go about it yet, but I think I might be considering owning up to it? Who knows.”

George hums quietly as if he’s afraid of scaring away Clay.

“You know I’ll- We’ll be with you supporting you the whole time no matter what you decide to do. All of us.”

Clay smiles at the kind words.

“I appreciate that more than you’ll ever know.” Clay yawns, not expecting his phone to pick it up. Of course, it does anyways.

George lets out a yawn of his own.

Seeing an opportunity, Clay makes a quick decision. 

“Hey do you think we could switch over to discord and maybe add Sapnap? We could all sleep call together.”

George agrees, and soon enough they’re all in a call together getting ready for bed. When they got into the call, Nick was in the middle of brushing his teeth, and they all collectively decided to leave the elephant in the room for tomorrow in favor of sleep.

As George and Nick go through their (admittedly simple) night routines, Clay lays in bed still. He was already ready to go to sleep, and probably couldn’t bring himself to leave the comfortable sheets if he wanted to.

So he gets to thinking as he’s left in his own thoughts. 

Thinking about what it would be like to see the other guys in person, to maybe even live with them. He would like that, he thinks distantly.

He would really like that.

To have a place with his two favorite people where he can be himself without judgement, completely safe. 

A place where he can cover up his face when he feels like it, and no one will bat an eye.

The more he lets his mind wander, the more it starts feeling more familiar.

More like home.

George would bring his own cat, Clay bets that he and Patches’ would get along. 

. . .

Maybe this could actually work.

Maybe they  _ could _ move in together. Clay had the space in his house, for sure. When he says he spoiled himself with his house he means it. He specifically made sure there was plenty of room for guests to stay, cause his family visited often. Which meant there were spare bedrooms that currently didn’t have permanent inhabitants, and one or two that could also be used for offices.

What a thought.

It’s at this point where he’s pulled from his thoughts by a rustling sound from his phone. George is getting into bed, he guesses. Turns out he’s right when George speaks quietly.

“Sapnap hurry  _ up! _ ” He drags out the second ‘a’ in his name, being overly dramatic both for the memes and also because he was  _ so fucking tired _ . It was obvious in his voice, and Clay would bet money that George has been awake since the incident.

Nick had been muted before, taking a “fat piss” as he so eloquently put it, but unmuted after a moment.

“Rush me and I’ll just take longer I promise.”

And then he deafens instead.

Clay can’t help but let out a weak laugh at his best friends’ antics, before realizing that until Nick gets done doing whatever he’s doing, it’s just him and George alone.

Huh.

Clay thinks about bringing up the idea to possibly move in together someday, but decides against it. He’ll bring it up once he’s comfortable again. Right now he just needs to calm down and fall asleep with his best friends.

Speaking of his best friends, Nick finally unmutes again after a few more minutes of comfortable silence, and all that’s heard is the quiet sound of fabric being moved, probably Nick’s covers, Clay thinks.

The call falls into a gentle sort of silence after saying their quiet “good nights”, and soon Clay is curled up with Patches under soft blankets.

He feels warm tears rolling down his cheeks as he falls asleep, but whether they come from a place of fear or content will forever remain unknown.

\- - -

When he wakes, it’s to the sound of soft whispers. His phone is still laying beside him on his pillow, and he can just barely see the light flooding through his curtains as he blinks open his eyes.

“He’s handling it better than I thought he would. Better than I ever could for sure”

“Yeah but I can’t even imagine how world-crushing this must feel.”

He hears soft humming before the heavy-accented voice comes through the phone again, “I wish we could be there for him in person.”

He hears Nick make a sound of agreement, but it goes quiet again. He doesn’t know how long that conversation had lasted, but it was clear from their voices that the two of them couldn’t have been awake long.

He thinks about what George had said last, ‘I wish we could be there for him in person.’ Clay wishes they could be too. 

He really does.

He takes a deep breath, reaching over to pet Patches slowly as he turns his head to look around his room.

He closes his eyes, laying his head back onto the plush pillows behind him.

He’s gonna be okay.

He’s going to get this over with, talk to all of his oh-so-worried friends, and move on so he really  _ can _ be with his best friends in person. 

But first he needs to fix this.

Sitting up, he stretches his arms above his head, popping his back. He’s warm and really,  _ really _ doesn’t feel like leaving the comfort of his bed, so he flops back down, making a sound close to that of a cow to let the others know he’s awake.

“Hey Clay”

The others use his real name, and he smiles. They’ve always used their on and off screen names interchangeably in private, but Clay has to admit that he prefers it just the slightest bit more when they use his real name. It feels more personal, reminds him that he’s real and not just ‘Dream’.

“G’morning guys,” he has to pause to clear his throat slightly, voice still coated in sleep, “I think I’m gonna do something about all this today. Don’t want to drag it out longer than necessary y’know?”

He gets various forms of agreement from both of them before opening his phone and staring at the sheer amount of notifications he has from discord. 

Better get this over with.

He first opens Wilbur’s messages. Wilbur didn’t quite spam him like George or Nick, but he did send a few messages offering someone to talk to, and he sent a link to a simple game meant to be distracting and calming for those who play it.

Clay does  _ not _ go all soft and smiley at the thought that his friends know how to deal with him so well in situations like this. He definitely does  _ not _ do that.

Instead, he types out a simple “I’m okay and safe thank you Wilbur :)”, and he adds a smiley face to try and make it convincing.

Moving on, he opens his dms with Tommy. Tommy didn’t say much considering he himself hasn’t seen Clay’s face, but he must have gotten word from Wilbur or Nick, because he sent a good “I know this isn’t like me but in all seriousness if you need to talk to someone I’m here big man” which was more than enough to make Clay smile.

He responds with “I’m all good but I appreciate the gesture dude” and closes the dms.

Since he responded to Tommy, he might as well respond to Tubbo as well.

Tubbo hasn’t seen his face either, but he also sent a nice message, so Clay responds similarly to the way he did Tommy. He runs through the rest of the dms he’s gotten, some of them making him tear up and others making him laugh softly, George and Nick not questioning why.

After he finishes responding to everyone letting them know he’s okay, he focuses back on the call. 

“I’m gonna mute and use the bathroom real quick. I'll be right back guys.” 

He mutes himself after getting noises of acknowledgement in return, pushing out of bed to get to the bathroom attached to his bedroom. 

He uses the restroom, washes his hands, and as he dries his hands off on the towel he glances in the mirror. He catches his own eye, and his whole body freezes.

That’s him.

That’s his face in the mirror.

Wow.

If- No.

_ When _ he shows his face to the internet later, everyone’s going to see his face.

The very face he’s looking at right now.

Yeah- Yeah okay.

Sure.

He can do this.

He nods shakily to no one but himself, leaving the bathroom and going back to the bed, picking up his phone from where he had left it.

Unmuting, he shares the fact that he wants to show his face to the others.

Once he clarifies that he’s sure, and that he’s okay with this, George and Nick do a great job of cheering him on and reassuring him.

They stay on call, chatting about random things and encouraging Clay to take little photos of himself to either use later or just boost his confidence.

And then 6pm rolls around, and that’s the time they set for him to face reveal. No particular reason, Clay just thinks it’s a good time.

He shakily opens twitter, the realization of what he’s about to do finally setting in. He doesn’t add any words, just two photos of himself and a /srs.

His thumb hovers over the send tweet button, and he hears a quiet “Clay?” from Nick on the other end of the call.

Nodding to himself, he responds with a soft sound to let him know he’s okay, lightly tapping the send tweet button and sitting back onto his pillows.

He watches in real time as the likes, retweets, and replies fly in. Some people just looking for interactions by saying things like ‘hi’ because they’re early, but also others who are absolutely losing their shit.

Which he expected, to be completely honest.

‘Dream Face Reveal’ Gets trending within a blink of an eye, and he chooses to ignore the hate under the tag as he basks in all the support he’s seeing.

He feels loved, and all three of them on call laugh at the occasional “I used to hate dream but that face. . .”

He closes out the app once he starts feeling slightly overwhelmed, not wanting to push himself too much after what had happened not long ago.

He hadn’t crashed like that in years, and he’d rather not risk doing it again so soon afterwards.

. . .

He doesn’t  _ feel _ very different, surprisingly.

He expected this to be a big deal for him, but despite seeing the impact it had on everyone else, he doesn’t feel very different.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

\- - -

It’s been roughly a year, and the three of them were finally able to move in together. 

It took months, and months, and  _ months _ of planning and working around their separate schedules, but they did it.

And now, cuddled up with his boyfriend (Oh yeah! Did I mention he and George got together recently?) and his best friend on the couch, he’s never been more content.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that wasn't too messy, but thank you for reading! All kudos and comments are appreciated :]


End file.
